Bottled water is available for free at one of the city buildings for people who have no water. Keep in mind that Walmart, CostCo and every supermarket in town is open and doing business. I just got back from WalMart and a 20 oz. bottle of water is $0.15….fifteen cents a bottle.
I am unable to believe that anyone is incapable of affording bottled water at fifteen cents a bottle. I mentioned this online and was told that its the difference between gas money to get to work or having water to drink. I am absolutely slack-jawed at the stupidity of this comment. But I’ll bet those same people who feel a fifteen cent bottle of water is ‘unaffordable’ bought craft beer, weed, cigarettes, or McDonalds today. To put that in perspective, 120 ounces of water, almost a gallon, comes out to six 20-oz bottles at $0.15 ea. Or, in other words, a six pack of drinking water is about a dollar. Skip one beer, one joint, one chocolate bar, or one can of pop out of a vending machine and you’ve got the resources to buy enough drinking water for the day.
Sadly, this town is full of people who absolutely refuse to take any accountability or responsibility for their well being. The second one thing, big or little, goes wrong, the reflex of these parasites is to turn to .gov. And if you question them about their helplessness and their lack of willingness to fend for themselves, you get tagged as ‘lacking empathy’.
All this to say that I really have given up on the unprepared strangers around me. If you can’t be bothered to take steps to be prepared to take care of yourself, or worse yet you can’t be bothered to take steps to ensure your family’s safety and security, then I am absolutely uninterested in covering for your abdication of personal responsibility.
Sure, I do help out my unprepared neighbors or coworkers but those people aren’t strangers to me. And I try to nudge them in a direction of more preparedness afterwards. But these idiot mouth-breathers who can’t even be bothered to have a flashlight and a case of bottled water? Screw them. They’re part of the problem.
“But these idiot mouth-breathers who can’t even be bothered to have a flashlight and a case of bottled water? Screw them. They’re part of the problem.”
Always were, and always will be.
Until the lack of water kicks in around Day Three, and the lack of calories becomes a problem around Day Twenty-One.
And to think, some people think Nature doesn’t have a drain plug.
Wish I could express it so well !
You are wrong. they are not part of the problem. They ARE the problem
Now you’ve figured out why the world is so screwed up. It’s run by stupid people.
I am an Emergency Manager in the midwest and run into this entitled attitude all the time. Its mind numbing.
I live in the Midwest. I keep at least ten gallons of water on hand. Plus enough food for a year. At certain times of the year like summer storm season. Also have a camp stove. I burn wood. I have two generators and Kerosine heats. Just to name a few. This year we have gotten quite a bit of rain. Even if this is supposed to be a drought year. But I’m pretty sure I’m set to meet most anything. Unless Old Joey starts playing with the launch codes.
Sounds, dear Commander, as if you had A Close Encounter Of the Entitled Kind.
Sucks.
At the risk of “tutoring” the Professor, this sounds like another argument in support of the Grey Man lifestyle.
“Survivalist? Aren’t they those wackaddodles that thing the end of the world is coming? Jeesh, how crazy can a person get!”
(slides away, whistling quietly….)
“Your lack of planning is not my emergency.”
And don’t forget how much they spend on their smart phone and other non-essentials. Choices, including not choosing, have consequences. Not your job to save everyone.
Amen.
I never openly revealed that I was a Self-Reliant when I was still working, although some may have figured it out. Sometimes I would make suggestions about earthquake preparedness which is a common topic in California. Discussing this doesn’t seem “weird” or “extremist” to most, even though the average person actually does very little to prepare for an earthquake even in Earthquake Country.
I forget how we got on the topic one day, but I asked a couple of the secretaries whether they kept water stored at home. Both said that they didn’t. I then asked, “Well, what are you going to do if there’s an earthquake?” My secretary responded, “You mean like go to the grocery store?” I said, “No, NOT like go to a grocery store. It won’t be there.”
The simple fact of life is that secretary’s attitude is the prevailing attitude in the population. When times turn tough, they’ll expect the government to be there for them. If government isn’t there, many of them will be tempted to come for the prepared, and some will come very quickly–and they may not simply be asking for help.
If, with the best of intentions, you’ve revealed your preparedness level to neighbors, don’t be surprised after a major disaster–be it an earthquake, nuclear war, or a financial collapse–if you find a hostile mob in front of your house yelling, “Hoarder! Hoarder!”
OPSEC is like a reputation. Once you’ve compromised it, it is difficult to get it back.
Hostile mob = Free Fire Zone
Anybody in such a mob isn’t my “neighbor”.
They’re a Target Of Opportunity.
Always keep a decent supply of spray-painted cardboard “Looter” signs with enough string attached to fit around necks.
They cover a multitude of other people’s mental and civic shortcomings.
Welcome to the jungle, pilgrims.
Give a thought to how you’ll fare on the pyramid when the apex is up for grabs.
I’m reminded of the Twilight Zone episode where the family is having a party in their home and Dad is talking about their bomb shelter. He may have even shown it to some of the guests. Later a nuclear alert is sounded, and everyone initially goes home. Then as the family is getting ready to button up in their shelter the neighbors descend like a pack of wolves and literally tear the door off of it to get in. Turned out it was a false alarm.
If he’d shot them all, as he should have, and it turned out to be a false alarm, he could have stacked the bodies inside his bomb shelter, until he had time to scatter them around the area randomly.
But then the episode is over in about 3 minutes…
Neighborhood mean IQ goes up by 100 points same day.
Just saying.
The crazy thing is I’ve seen this The Twilight Zone (Classic) Season 3 Episode 3 ‘Shelter’ episode listed on the internet as a reason not to have anything at all.
This is one of the few OK talks about it –
https://youtu.be/kt6o0dPLwCg?si=iHZVmK-nafRdOYVr
Can’t save people who do not want to be saved.
One day you will probably have to shoot some of them. Thanks in advance!
I’m way passed trying to educate people. They had the same information available to them that I have had over the years. If they choose to ignor it or refuse to take responsibility then it will suck to be them. Other than family and close friends, I don’t have the time to waste on them now.
Life is about making choices and most choose poorly.
Dad says “war on yourj own soil is the only cure for a weak fat dumb population “
If you win they are mostly gone and you are stronger .
If you lose Yalu are slaves to the conqueror but the stupid ones are still gone . And in a few hundred years you come out .
We are way past the time for some cataclysmic event to get rid of the idiots and welfare class .
Lack of empathy? Oh yeah! I belong to the Search and Rescue organization in a very rural border county. Stupid people guarantee job security. People who don’t deal with it would be amazed at the idiotic mistakes people make. Way too many to mention, but you are absolutely right that they assume .gov is always there for them.
Those people will become a huge problem when things get rally bad and .gov isn’t there to baby them
Well…hopefully if they dont have the foresight to have food, water, and flashlights then they won’t have the foresight to have AR’s and level IV plates. Some, but not most.
I once worked with a man and we were walking home I noticed that the shop 60 feet from his door had Toilet Paper on sale. It was the best offer I’d ever seen even twenty years later. I went in and got 11 packs of four – all I could carry the mile home. I said to him “Are you getting any” and he said back “I got a pack last week”, Next day at work he said he needed to buy a pack as he had run out that morning.We went in as I was going to get eleven more packs. It turns out they had the wrong price on them. He went and got one at a price that was three times what I’d paid and was still an OK price. It turns out he never got anything at all until he ran out of it, and then went to the corner shop which as you can guess was not cheap.
I’ve lost count of the number of people I have known who buy seven days worth of everything, every seven days so even if they are ill they cannot put it off until day eight. Or they call on the way home as every day as they have nothing in the house at all.
There are people who’s life revolves around gaming the system, putting it over on “the man”.
Most often seen in hospital emergency rooms – they demand service and have no intention to pay. Many times they are actually eligible for various government programs but can’t be assed to sign up, so the hospital and the physicians eat the cost – leading to $300 tylenol tabs.
When I was in clinical medicine (ER physician) our patients had a 29-33% non payment rate. And thanks to federal law, we had to continue to treat them.
Socialized healthcare for the poor/dishonest, paid for by the (shrinking) middle class. Bugs me when non-Americans online say the US should have socialized healthcare, b/c we already do, unless you’re honest or make over x dollars.
The end of your missive reveals a certain mindset.
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Only honest people always pay their debts. All corporations negotiate labyrinthine laws to avoid debt, negotiate alternative settlements, file bankruptcy, etc. We’re told as a society that we must honor our obligations while the people telling us to do so rarely honor their obligations.
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It seems to me that we are all suckers. One side indoctrinated to maintain the old ways (while the companies do not), and the other told that the old ways are ebil and must be torn down.
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I suppose if I was being philosophical, I could come up with an approach where WE redefine what is right and what is wrong. Then adjust the irreparably broken legal system to create a ‘just’ system to make it function.
A friend found himself literally a step away from homeless. He fell at an event at a community college, and fractured his hip – and without insurance, tried to tough it out for a week or so.
Finally, got into a hospital, where his fracture was repaired. Unfortunately, they also discovered he had pancreatic cancer… But, while he could have gotten a large payout from the community college, he settled for his medical bills be paid. He died from the cancer shortly after.
Very good points.
They are the same people who think that housing, food, water, medical supplies, and feminine hygiene products should all be free under the claim that “you shouldn’t have to pay just to exist.” When asked where the money will come from to pay for all of that stuff, they reply “The government will pay for it.”
This is part of the problem with having a safety net – people aren’t responsible for the consequences of their actions, so they don’t learn to plan ahead or think through what they’re doing.
It doesn’t help that we have pretty much everything available all the time in our stores .
Then they ignore history (See Hurricanes Andrew and Katrina). Rape, murder, mayhem, chaos, illegal detentions, gun confiscations, forced evacuations to … well, somewhere (maybe where your kids got dumped) ensue if its a big enough event.
Now act surprised and shocked when the power goes out for a couple days. I’m reasonably confident these people didn’t rush to the bathtub to fill it with water.
I talked with someone yesterday asking for extra hours because they’re now the only income in their house – as they hold a fancy drink from a local coffee shop that makes Starbucks look expensive…
Me thinks there are some places they could save money quite easily.
I’m a fan of the move The Trigger Effect and before Hurricanes Katrina the reviews on Amazon were mostly “It’ll never get that bad” the ones for two years after (removed now) were “It’ll never stay that safe”.
.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trigger_Effect –
Going back to the title … Assuming you can pick up enough to offset the cost of gas to make the trip, why not grab some of that “free” water? After all, it wasn’t free – you paid for it, via your taxes. (Let’s not think about what the city paid for it. But that would be an interesting thread to pull.)
I have spent the last thrityfive years of my life working and sacrificing so that I would never have to be one of those people that shows up to a place like that.
The local homeless shelter is handing out free meals to the homeless….I’m not going for that either.
I understand what you’re saying and where you’re coming from, but on the off chance there really, truly are people who need that resource I would rather leave it for them.
Also, being around a bunch of “Free Shit Army” types right now would be incredibly bad for my mood. I’m already up-to-here with these pot-smoking lefties whining that .gov should replace their refrigerator contents..the last thing I need to be is in a roomful of those oxygenwasters.
Most homes in the US have a 40-gallon water heater, built in storage for those who know there is a spigot at the bottom. In a Mad Max world just go house to house and drain the water heater.
We went with a Berky filter and no longer buy bottled water. The collapse of our financial system is going to be the real emergency. When a nation is borrowing money to pay the INTEREST on their debt, that’s Weimar republic stuff.
The Chicoms took 53 TONS of gold out of the London exchange just in the month of May. They know what is coming.
The Chicoms famously think long-term whereas we only think in increments of four years. They’ve been establishing a heavy presence in Africa leasing gigantic swaths of farmland, building airports big enough to handle military transports, and acquiring ports of large capacity. There is absolutely zero doubt in my mind that the Chinese are the biggest threat. Right now theyre positioning themselves economically, but when thats done it’ll be time for their big expansion into the physical imperialism.
Most homes in the US have a 40-gallon water heater, built in storage for those who know there is a spigot at the bottom. In a Mad Max world just go house to house and drain the water heater.
The problem with this is that when the pressure fails, or there is a real ‘big bad’ that happens, the water delivered to your home is unsafe BEFORE you know about it to close off you water heater inlet. It’s better than nothing, and the prepper has a way to treat or filter the water in the tank, but your non-prepper probably doesn’t.
You can use it for flushing, and hygiene, but I wouldn’t count on it for drinking.
After experiencing this during IKE in Houston, I started storing a LOT more water. Many hundreds of gallons in various states of potability….
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(a used water heater tank might make a decent water storage tank , and be relatively stealthy depending on where you install it, but you don’t want water constantly flowing thru it. Periodically drain and refill…)
I know it’s not used as much now but I bet a lot of these people only ever own a electric can opener.